Two of the most familiar names in American delivery announced on Thursday that they plan to become one company. DoorDash has agreed to acquire Instacart for $65 per share, valued at roughly $17 billion. The real question is whether regulators will let it happen, and the companies are giving themselves more than a year to find out.

What DoorDash Is Paying

The offer values Instacart’s parent company, Maplebear, at about $17 billion in equity and sits 26% above where its stock closed on October 22, the last trading day before media reports of a possible deal surfaced. Instacart’s board approved it unanimously.

Shareholders get a choice. They can take all cash, take 0.3372 DoorDash shares for each Instacart share, or split the difference with $48.75 in cash plus 0.0843 shares. Stock is capped at 25% of the total consideration, so elections will be scaled back if too many holders ask for shares.

DoorDash will pay for the cash portion from its own reserves and new debt. According to the company’s SEC filing, JPMorgan has committed to a 364-day bridge loan, and the agreement has no financing condition, which means DoorDash cannot back out simply because borrowing gets harder.

A Long Road to Closing

Do not expect a quick finish. The companies say the transaction should close at the end of 2027 or in the first half of 2028. Along the way it needs a vote of Instacart shareholders, expiry of the Hart-Scott-Rodino antitrust waiting period in the United States, and approvals in Canada and Israel. Holders of about 19% of Instacart’s shares have already committed to vote in favor.

Until then, the two businesses will keep operating separately. Once combined, DoorDash says it intends to keep Instacart’s brand, its app and its enterprise technology products, and to merge the two membership programs. It has also pledged not to require grocers to use DoorDash delivery exclusively, a promise aimed squarely at the retailers who depend on Instacart’s software.

DoorDash is projecting at least $500 million in annual synergies, net of investments, over a multi-year path. The company expects to reinvest more than all of those savings in the first year, with net synergies turning positive from year two.

Why Groceries, and Why Now

The strategic logic is easy to read in the numbers. DoorDash built its name on restaurant orders, but the bigger prize is the weekly shop. Morningstar’s Martin Szumski told Reuters that growth now lies in grocery, convenience items and retail. Bloomberg framed the deal against the pressure from Walmart and Amazon.

DoorDash is not arriving from a position of weakness. In the quarter it reported alongside the announcement, it handled 993 million orders, up 28% from a year earlier, on marketplace gross order value of $33.9 billion, up 36%. Revenue reached $4.6 billion, up 34%, and net income rose 91% to $466 million. A good part of that growth came from Deliveroo, which DoorDash bought last year. Without it, orders grew 17% and revenue 23%, still strong for a company of this size.

Instacart’s growth is steadier but slower. According to its own third-quarter results, gross transaction value was $10.5 billion, up 15%, on 91.4 million orders, up 10%. Revenue was $1.095 billion, up 17%. That sits against a backdrop of cooling momentum since its 2023 public listing, as it has fought for share with DoorDash, Uber and Amazon.

For Instacart’s chief executive, Chris Rogers, the pitch is scale. Joining DoorDash, he said, “allows us to do even more.” DoorDash co-founder and CEO Tony Xu described the network his company has built as one “local stores rely on every day.” Instacart customers would gain access to more than 50,000 additional stores on top of the nearly 100,000 already on the platform, according to NBC.

How Wall Street Reacted

Investors sorted the two companies quickly. DoorDash shares rose nearly 6% in early trading, according to Reuters. Instacart barely moved, sitting at $58.35, well under the $65 offer. Benzinga put DoorDash’s premarket gain even higher, at 7.38%, so the final closing figures will tell the cleaner story.

The distance between Instacart’s trading price and the offer is worth watching. CFRA Research told Reuters that “the main risk is regulatory approval,” and noted that the long closing window suggests both sides expect an extended antitrust review that leaves the deal exposed to changes in policy.

The Antitrust Question

Reuters reports that the Federal Trade Commission is likely to take a hard look, given its focus on affordability and its history of examining delivery-app practices. eMarketer analyst Zak Stambor was blunter, saying the deal would “almost certainly draw antitrust scrutiny.”

Instacart has already been through one such episode. The FTC said last year that it was examining the company’s price experiments, which Instacart ended after a study by Consumer Reports and the Groundwork Collaborative. Advocacy groups, among them the American Economic Liberties Project according to UPI, have also criticized gig-worker pay and surveillance pricing across the industry, and both platforms depend on large networks of independent contractors.

It is important to be precise about where things stand. No investigation has been confirmed, and the expectation of regulatory resistance comes from analysts, not from the agency. The deal is pending and could still change or fail.

What to Watch Next

DoorDash will file a Form S-4 with the SEC containing the proxy statement and prospectus Instacart shareholders will vote on. That document should fill in the details of how the deal came together, and the first hints of regulators’ interest will likely show up there or in the antitrust review that follows.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the two were in advanced talks, and DoorDash shares fell 5% that day. By Thursday, the market had seen the whole picture. What remains is a year or more of waiting to learn whether the company that delivers your dinner will also be allowed to deliver your groceries.